Traditions
by sayah1112
Summary: Inuyasha and their young son die, leaving Kagome alone in a world not her own. Tradition demands that the eldest in the clan look after his fallen brother's mate. But Sesshoumaru turns his back on tradition, and the consequences are deadly. Can he make amends, or is it already too late? Not For the Faint of Heart. R
1. Chapter 1

This was written in response to Riku Ryuu's POV challenge. WARNING This fic is VERY dark in the first few chapters. Definitely not for the sensitive.

**Chapter One: Release**

If I had known dying was so easy, I would have done it a long time ago. Once you get past the pain of dying, there is this moment of sweet release, where you let go of the worries, the fear, and the agony of living. I'm at this moment now, swimming in an ocean of blissful nothing. For the first time in years I am numb. My heart, my thrice damned heart, no longer aches with the pain of loss. It no longer cries out in vain for the man who is long gone.

_Inuyasha._

I laugh, and the sound bubbles up out of my throat and past my bloody lips. Looking up from where I lie on the grass, I can see the sky through the leafy canopy of the trees. The clouds. It's a beautiful summer day outside and for the first time in a long time I can enjoy it. I revel in the sound of the long grasses' whisper as they wave in the wind. The chipper sound of bird calls as they soar on a breeze. The scent of wild flowers envelops me; they smell so sweet and fresh that it brings a rush of hot tears to my eyes. Is this what I have been missing? I had been living in a cold world of gray for so long now. Nothing could touch me, nothing could warm me.

But death shatters such boundaries. It transcends. The fog is lifted, the pain is gone. All that is left is this sweet, sweet release.

God, it's beautiful.

And I'm dying.

I close my eyes against the light of day, open my hands wide, palms up. I know I will see you on the other side, my loves. Tears of joy seep out from my tightly closed lids, cutting down the sides of my face.

I breathe out.

And then? I am no more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two: Alpha**

Sesshoumaru stood, bathed in moonlight, on the edge of Inuyasha's forest. He loses himself, briefly, in thought. Inuyasha, the half-brother he hated. Despised. Always considered inferior, weak even. But the whelp had proven him wrong, hadn't he? He had mastered their father's coveted blade, had gotten back up time and time again when he'd been knocked down. The half demon had an indomitable will, a fighter's spirit. Despite the circumstances of his birth, despite the obstacles he faced, he had survived. Countless demons and evil humans lay dead by Inuyasha's claws, his blade.

Sesshoumaru tilted his head to the side, an impatient snarl curling on his lip. Such thoughts were useless. The half breed who had survived so much, overcome so many obstacles, was dead. Cut down by a human fever.

A sickness.

There was no honor in such a death. Not after everything the whelp had been through, had fought for. Sesshoumaru had even come to respect him over the years.

And what does the stupid half breed do? He dies , following in his firstborn son's footsteps.

Sesshoumaru could still clearly remember the day that Jaken had delivered the news, while a tearful Rin stood wringing her hands in the doorway, begging him to save Inuyasha-san and Kenji-kun. At his ward's behest, Sesshoumaru had left the comfort of his castle and headed toward the village that Rin had traveled from. The village that bordered Inuyasha's forest.

By the time he arrived, Inuyasha and his whelp had been long dead. The miko that Inuyasha had taken to mate was burning with fever. It was only out of respect for all that the miko had done for the village and it's people that villagers did not burn her body alongside her mate's and pup's.

The idiots. Out of fear of sickness, they had turned Inuyasha and the child's corpses to ash. There would be no resurrection. No second chance. Not for the half breed, and not for his son.

Sesshoumaru remembered standing in the doorway of the small hut where Inuyasha and his mate had made their home. He remembered looking down on the miko, her face slicked with sweat, her head thrashing back and forth on the pallet. Her eyes were glazed when she opened them and Sesshoumaru could still recall the desperation in those blue orbs when they lit upon him. The hope. Sesshoumaru, for the first time in a long time, had felt his heart wrench inside of his chest.

"S-Save them. Sesshoumaru-sama…p-please." The miko had whispered past her dry, bleeding, lips. Her hand raising, shaking and trembling, as she beseeched him. Asked him to do the impossible. She did not ask for herself. She did not care; he could see it in her eyes. Like a true Alpha female, she put the safety and wellbeing of her pack first. And it was all for naught.

She did not know. She did not know what the humans had done to her mate and child.

Sesshoumaru had stood in the doorway, temporarily captivated by the young woman at his feet.

"There is nothing left to save, Miko. They are gone. Burned." The words fell from his lips like heavy blades. Cold. Hard. Cutting. He turned on his heel then, walking out of the hut that smelt of sweat and sickness. The cry that had gone up as he left would be one that would long haunt his dreams. It was not overly loud or shrill, but it was the sound of a human heart breaking, a soul shattering.

The miko had lost everything.

And Sesshoumaru had kept walking. Away from the noise, away from the miko and her broken heart. Why? Because she had stirred something within him, feelings of remorse, of compassion.

Compassion was a weakness. The feelings were uncomfortable. And despite what tradition dictated; that Sesshoumaru take his half-brother's wife into his household, care for her, Sesshoumaru had simply walked away. For the first time in a long time, he had turned his back on tradition. She had made him _feel_ and that had been unacceptable.

That was six years ago. Not at all that long for a demon, and one so long lived as the Lord of the Western lands, but for a human? It had been quite some time. He would not even be here now, if not for Tenseiga. The blade had woken him out of a sound sleep. He dreamt, as he did every time he closed his eyes, of pale blue orbs awash with tears. Of desperation, of love. He dreamt of _her. _The miko, the yin to his demon yang. He saw her as she was that day, sick with fever and worry.

But then, for the first time in six years, the dream had changed. Morphed.

He didn't see a sickly miko any longer. Instead he saw the girl, young and vibrant. Her head thrown back on a laugh, love and mirth shining in her blue eyes as a wide smile stretched across her plump lips. He saw her running before him, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she turned around to call out his name, her long ink black hair shooting out behind her. He knew, without actually _knowing, _that her skin was like silk, the taste of her lips as sweet as honey, and her passion, her love, burned hot.

And then Inuyasha stood before him, arms crossed over his chest, that perpetual frown on his lips.

"These are my memories, Sesshoumaru. This is the woman that I loved. This is how I see her, how I've always seen her. You have to save her. She was supposed to be safe with you. You were supposed to take care of her. She doesn't deserve this," Inuyasha swallowed thickly before his gaze again sought Sesshoumaru's. "Take her. Mate her. She is a worthy female. Any children you sire on her will be strong, powerful. Just…don't let her die."

And then Sesshoumaru had been ripped from the dream by the insistent pulsing of Tenseiga. Without conscious thought, Sesshoumaru had followed instinct, allowing his father's blade to lead him where it would. And of course the insufferable sword had led him back here. To this place. To these memories.

Mentally scoffing at his own folly, Sesshoumaru turned his back on the forest. His intent? To leave. He cared not what purpose the blade had, nor why his dead half-brother had come to visit in a dream. The miko, the woman, the **_human_** was not his concern. She never had been, and she never would be.

He made it about three steps before his superior nose picked up a most disturbing scent.

Blood._ Her_ blood.

For a moment Sesshoumaru stood, rooted to the spot. His desire to leave was strong. He knew, suddenly and without any doubt, why the sword had led him here. He knew what it wanted from him. No emotion dared cross the stoic planes of his face, and yet Sesshoumaru was fighting a fierce inner battle. He did not want to follow that scent. He did not want to see where it led. He knew what he would find. It would be…uncomfortable, to say the least.

_Coward._ His beast hissed, speaking to him for the first time in six years. _You run away? Scared?_ It taunted him cruelly, lashing out at his pride.

Sesshoumaru growled, the sound was low and gravelly, a warning.

"This Sesshoumaru is no coward."

_Aren't you? _ His beast countered. _You run from her. She is __**ours.**_

Briefly, Sesshoumaru closed his eyes against the primal heat and onslaught that his beast was rallying within him.

_Save her. Mark her. Mount her. Claim her. She is __**OURS**__._

Despite his best efforts, he felt his canines begin to elongate, his lips curl back as his eyes began to bleed red in the corners. He could, it seemed, no longer fight it. He had put this meeting off for as long as he could. It was time to face it, face her, and face the consequences of his neglect.

It did not take long for the demon lord to find her. She was where he knew she would be, by Goshinbiki, the tree of ages.

She lay prone at it's base, her arms outspread in a gesture of surrender. She was bathed in the iridescent light from the full moon above, her head canted to the side and an expression of peace written across her face. She was still young for a human. Too young, perhaps, to lose so much and then be left bereft. Alone in her grief.

And yet she looked for all the world as if she was simply sleeping. The coopery smell of blood in the air, however, belied such a sweet expression. How much had the miko suffered in order to have such a countenance? Was death really that preferable to life?

"She is weak." Sesshoumaru's voice was cold, hard. His golden eyes bore down upon the prone form at his feet, his hand resting on the hilt of Tensiega. Reluctantance in the hard line of his jaw, the tenseness in his shoulders.

_She is strong._ The beast countered. _ No mate to protect her, no pups to live for._

"She is a coward." Sesshoumaru snarled, his eyes hard and flinty. He hated this. Hated the ache in his chest at the sight of the miko blood spilled on the ground. He felt guilt. And he did not like it.

_Many would have followed their mate long before this. _ The beast growled back, rearing up inside him. _You know this to be true. The only coward here is __**you**__._

Sesshoumaru growled, his hand tightening around the hilt of Tenseiga. In a fluid movement he drew the blade. Demons of the underworld became visible to his sharp gaze, their chains thrown across the body of the miko.

Sesshoumaru knew what would happen if he revived her. He knew what needed to be done, what should have been done all those years ago. And he also knew that she would hate him for it. She would fight him, despise him. But in the end? She would submit.

Because he was her Alpha, and he would have it no other way.

In one swing he sliced through the little beasts that crawled over his miko, severing the chains that were trying to drag her soul down to the underworld.

Sheathing Tenseiga he approached the prone form of the miko, a snarl twisting across his lips. He hated her for doing this to him, for forcing his hand like this. There would be no going back now. He took a knee next to her as her body began to heal before his eyes. The wounds at her wrists sealing up, closing. With ease, he scooped her up into his arms, one hand weaving through the soft silk of her hair.

And then he heard it.

The first beat of her heart.

**_Lub-dub_**

His beast howled in victory at the sound of her first indrawn breath. Her gasp as her eyelids fluttered open, those long sooty black lashes spiky with tears. She reached a hand up toward him, her fingers fisting in the silk of his haori.

"Inu-Inuyasha?"

He growled at the sound of his half brother's name on her lips. His hand fisted in her hair, baring her neck and her pulse to his gaze.

"_Mine." _ He growled, fangs erupting past his lips as he lowered his head to her neck. He gave her no time to fight him, no time for tears or arguments. Instead, he bit down hard on her neck, his fangs slicing through the tender flesh as he replaced the old mark there with his own. He knew the moment that she realized what he had done, for she grew stiff in his arms.

Ignoring the scream of denial that left her lips, he rose to his feet, the miko still cradled in his arms.

"_You are mine now."_ Seshoumaru growled, his red eyed looking down at the tearful miko in his arms. Her hand was raised to her neck, the fingers tracing over the bloody wound of his mark. A mark that would tie her to him until his death. Prolong her life. A mark that claimed her as his mate.

He ignored the scent of her tears, the soft pleading wails that spiraled down into cries, then whimpers. He was taking the miko home. He was fulfilling his duty as Alpha. Following tradition. Soon he would have her. She would be under him, his bitch, by this time tomorrow night.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

For so long you have been living with a pain so deep, so cutting, that you know it would leave eternal scars on your soul. No mother should ever outlive her child, and you never even got a chance to say goodbye before they took his little body away and burned it in a mass pyre. Your baby, the one you brought into this world, the one who's first smile warmed your heart and filled you with hope. If you close your eyes, you can still remember the sweet scent of his skin, so soft and smooth, as he wrapped his chubby little hand around your finger and cooed. You remember that surprisingly strong grip amongst other things. The way his eyes used to light up when you sang to him at night, his first word (dada) and how proud you were of him when he took those first, shaky, steps into your arms. Proud and sad, because your little baby was growing up, and wouldn't be a baby for much longer.

Or so you thought.

He died, your son, his life cut short by a deadly sickness that swept through the village. There was no saving him, or the man that you loved with such a desperate intensity. You were forced to watch as fever ravaged their bodies, twisted and wasted them, until all that was left was lifeless husks of the people they once were. Your entire world was wiped away in little more than a week. And there was nothing you could do to stop it, nothing you could do to save them. The powers that you inherited, that were your birthright, only prolonged their suffering. You weren't trained to heal this kind of ill. And how they suffered for it.

Dead.

But there was hope, there was always hope, and even when you were burning with fever, sick yourself, you sent away the only person who was there to help you. The only person left that dared to risk the infection.

"Get Sesshoumaru, Rin. Don't let them die." You urged her, and watched as she left with a tearful nod. You knew she would make haste, you only hoped you could hold on long enough to see your son and your husband well again.

Then the fever got worse. You have no idea how much time passed, because fever does strange things to a person's body, to their perception. The only thing you remember is looking up to find the being you most wanted to see standing in the entry way of your home. Standing tall, proud, his aristocratic face as smooth and unaffected as usual. His eyes, such a similar shade to your husbands, cut daggers through your heart. He had the power to save them. Only he could save them, and in the process save you, from a world of misery.

You begged. You pleaded. The once proud and fiery girl from the future, who was too headstrong and independent to beg for anything….

"There is nothing left to save, Miko. They are gone. Burned." His words were hard and flat, delivered brutally.

You turn your head to the side, looking for the bodies that were there only yesterday.

Gone. They're gone.

And then you scream, because if you don't, if you don't let out the pain that is bursting in your chest, you will surely explode outward into a million little pieces. You scream because you've just lost everything that was ever important to you and then some. You scream because they're gone, and they're not coming back, and after everything you've done and sacrificed it's just… not fair.

And then your throat is raw and bloody, and you can't scream out loud anymore, but you're still screaming in your head.

You don't want to live; you want it to take you too. Let it take your whole family, so that you can be reunited in death. But the fates are simply not that kind. A day later the fever ebbs, breaks.

You survive.

You live, if you can call it that. The villagers are apologetic; you can see the relief and fear in their eyes. You have no time for apologies. No time for their words, which fall flat and insincere on your ears. You leave the village, and the memories behind. With nothing but your bow and a quiver of arrows, you venture out into a world that is not your own.

You walk, wander, aimlessly. No direction in mind. Half of you hopes that you will come across a demon that can kill you, or a band of marauders that will slit your throat for the coin they hope you carry in your pocket. For years you wander, a ghost, a shell. Untouched and unfeeling. You've shut the doors to your heart, refuse to let emotion in. To do so would be crippling, debilitating. There's suffering all around you, people and children dying in every village you pass through, and for the first time in your life… you feel nothing.

Not pity. Not compassion. Nothing.

But you don't walk away when they ask for your help. You purify the demon that is terrorizing the village and razing the fields. You heal the scrapes and broken bones of the children and the elderly. But you do not linger. You do not stay.

You keep walking. Because you no longer have a place in this world. And the more you venture out into it, the more it becomes clear. For years you struggle on, struggle with the pain, the feelings of abandonment and the depression that comes with it. The hopelessness.

And finally, after six years of wandering, your feet carry you back to a place you once called home. You walk through the forest that is your husband's namesake, and for the first time in a long time you feel something squeeze inside your chest.

Pain.

And then it comes to you. Forget the fates. You tried. You tried so hard. You just can't do it anymore, cant deal with the pain of losing them. You want to see them again, even if it is in death. You are about to take your destiny into your own hands.

And so you plan to take your own life. It doesn't take you long to figure out how you're going to do this. You will be effective, thorough. You search the forest to find the berries and roots that you're looking for. They're poisonous, toxic, sure to kill you. You know that by drinking the tea infused with these toxins, you will die a slow and painful death. They will first build fluid in your lungs, attack your respitory system, before systematically moving through your body and attacking your organs. But that's not enough. The death is too prolonged, and despite the number of toxins in your system, if a skilled healer stumbled across you… there is a chance they could save you.

And you're not taking chances. Not today. So you wait until it get's hard to breathe, you settle yourself down at the base of his tree, where this entire story began. In a weird way, it's like you can still feel him there, like a piece of him is still pinned here. Trapped. And it soothes you, warms you, even as the posion has you shaking and shivering. You draw the blade from your hip, a simple dagger, and close your eyes as you drag it hard across your wrists.

You can feel the blood rushing to the surface, rushing out of your body and onto the ground next to you.

And you don't care. Because suddenly, for the first time in a long time, the world is a brighter place. There's hope in your heart. Love. Peace. You will see them soon.

When you fade away, it's peaceful. Because you know there will be no coming back, that no healer can undo the damage you've wrought. You will see you husband and son soon.

But you weren't planning on_ him._

One second you're dead, and in the next you're breathing again.

You look up to find darkness all around you, but you're being cradled in strong arms. A waterfall of soft, silky silver hair surrounds you. And eyes that you never thought you'd see again. Golden eyes, the color of toasted honey, stare down at you intently. Watching. Waiting.

"Inu-Inuyasha?"

And the next thing you know fangs are bursting into your neck, the hands gripping your body no longer gentle. This is not the man you love. This is not the one you swore you'd spend eternity with, even if it meant following him into death. This is…

Sesshoumaru.

Tensaiga.

And then you scream. You scream because he's ruined everything, everything that you worked for. You scream because how is it that the fates could possibly be this cruel, this cold. You scream because the mark on your neck that belonged to your husband…now belongs to another.

And you scream because….you know what that means.

A/N: 2nd person POV. Didnt think I could do it. Not my favorite thing I've ever written but... hey. Challenge accepted. ;)


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